remember me, remember you
by pearlbutton328
Summary: She can't breathe. She needs to know if this is what love is supposed to feel like.
1. her ending

There is something about the rainfall. The way it drops out of the sky, once clouds born from bodies of water, how it wets every gap, crack, crevice in the street, on the rooftops. Cleansing in the way that it runs across everything on the earth, shining rocks and leaving surfaces gleaming. Scary in the way that it beats a hard patter against window panes, its cousin, thunder, not far behind.

It is this that wakes Sam from her light nap. She started when she heard the rhythm against her ear and pulled back from her reclined spot against the large window to look out into the grey daylight, to the trees flying by. It is so dark that behind her reflection, she can see the other inhabitants of the bus.

There is a couple sitting directly across the aisle from her, the man holding and cooing at a small child as the woman types away on a laptop. The eerie glow from the screen sheds light upon her face, and Sam can see that her mouth is slack and her eyelids are heavy. But then the baby reaches over and tugs at one of the woman's curls and she snaps out of her dozing, sending a funny look at the child and a small glare at the man. He smiles sheepishly.

Seated behind the older couple is a young boy, probably around her age, bopping his head along to the headphones over his ears. He is chewing on his lip and his hand is moving furiously as he sketches what must be his twentieth picture since this long ride had began. Sam finds herself staring at him for a long time, at the way the end of his hair curls up from underneath his skullcap and how he pauses every five seconds to rub at his nose. He has a bandage along the right side of his face and there is a cast on the hand that he isn't using to draw, but other than that, he looks completely normal. Approachable.

Sam thinks that if she were who she used to be, she would probably be talking and joking with him, because she couldn't help but be a sociable person. But then again, if she were who she used to be, she wouldn't be running away.

It's when she spots an elderly couple rubbing their noses against each others' that she pulls her eyes away from the reflection of the window and scrunches down in her seat. Besides the fact that she thinks that people past the age of thirty should not be making out, _ever_, she's shaken over the memory—or, memories—that made it hard for her to face Seattle.

She hadn't expected their clandestine relationship to happen, didn't really imagine herself with one of her best friends in the first place. But it had happened, had started the day that they hosted the iCarly Web Awards and Sam noticed Freddie giving her this _look_, and she had only just been able to shake off the confusing feeling after weeks' past when he had pulled her in his arms. It was in the school, after one of Sam's many detentions and Freddie's dorky AV Club meeting, and Sam remembers stumbling home that day, dazed, and her fingers hadn't left her lips until after she let herself in her room and fell on the bed.

As she closes her eyes, she allows memories of their relationship overtake her. All of the sneaked kisses, soft touches that made her head spin, hidden smiles and desire in his eyes. She dwells on the memory of the last day she saw him, at Spencer and Charlotte's wedding, when Carly was wearing a flowing silver bridesmaid dress and Freddie hadn't been able to pull his eyes away from her for more than a few minutes. Sam hadn't thought twice about it because Carly looked gorgeous at the time with dark hair pulled up in a beautiful dark bun adorned with flecks of silver and gold and heels adding a few inches to her already modelesque form. Sam, herself, wasn't even able to look away from the proud smile spread across Carly's face, so she didn't think to be suspicious of Freddie.

Later, at the reception, something deep in her chest had panged painfully as she watched from the sidelines Freddie twirling Carly across the ballroom floor. She thought that it was some ridiculous form of jealousy that she was feeling, but as one song turned into the next then the next and the tempo picked up, Sam found herself outside of the reception hall, clutching her brightly glowing cellphone as it rang Freddie's number. It rang and rang.

He didn't pick up.

Soon, though, Freddie stepped through the doors and Sam's hand clutched the fabric of her dress, bunching it up against her heart as she watched him take a deep breath and let it out, a wide, happy smile on his face.

He had turned to her, startled, when she called his name.

"You looked like you were having fun."

Freddie paused and looked over her shoulder. "I wondered where you went off to."

"Don't lie," she said, sharply. She took a few steps toward him. "Freddie, just what do you think you were doing?"

He shook his head and gave her a look that said, _Must I really explain to you what you already saw?_ He answered, "I was dancing. What are you doing?"

"Freddie," her hands clenched at her sides, cell phone digging into her palm. "You and Carly…"

He looked away from her.

"You and Carly," she started again. "Just answer me this. Is something going on between the two of you?"

"What?" Freddie had laughed. "Carly was just asking me the same question last week."

"Just answer the question."

Freddie hesitated, took a deep breath. "I don't know," he finally answered. "Maybe."

"Maybe," Sam mumbled under her breath, and looked away. She hated herself at that moment for sniffing back tears she could feel forming behind her lids. "How did you answer the question she asked you a week ago?"

"I told her that… That there was nothing between us."

Sam had nodded, forcing a tight smile. "Good."

"Sam…"

"Don't," she jerked away from his reaching hands, walked around him to the door. She felt as if her breath was being stifled, her eyes stinging in a way they never had and in a way that she never wanted anyone to see. She was afraid that she'd break apart.

Poor, stupid, foolish her. She had known of Freddie's feelings for Carly and had to swallow back nausea as Carly told her through late night discussions on the phone how Freddie was getting taller, how his smile made her smile, how she felt as if she were finally returning his feelings and if she should be worried. Sam had never thought, though, that Freddie would actually leave her for Carly.

Childhood crush or not, she hadn't ever thought that he would just drop her after two years of being _her's_.

Sam gasped and opened her eyes as the bus hid a deep pothole, and sat up. The boy listening to his mp3 shot her a curious look through brown eyes, and Sam quickly looked away, down to the cell phone she held in her lap. The small lcd display lit up as an incoming call from Carly signaled.

It was the third call from her best friend in the past ten minutes. Sam knew she should just turn her phone off—it would make Carly's frequent calls less worrying—but something in her kept her fingers away from the red button. She knew that it had to do with the fluttering feeling that rose in her throat on the few and far apart occasions that Freddie decided to call her, and though she felt foolishly hopeful and nervous at the same time, she couldn't find the courage she needed to pick up on his calls.

She tucked the phone in her jeans pocket and stared out the window, past the heavily falling drops to the blur of greenery, and breathed slow and deep to calm her stuttering heart.

She couldn't believe that she had fallen for Freddie Benson.


	2. austin life

"Okay… Yeah, I see that it's doing well… Mm-hmm… I get it, yup… Yeah, I'm fine… Yeah, I just have to go, you know, just came in from work and all… No—not Spencer! Carly, you know I don't have the ti—_Hey_, Spencer! How are you and Gibby's mom kicking it? That's cool, I knew you would get over your fear of her face sooner or later… Yeah, I'm totally eating. Hah! Ham, always. Okay, well I have to… wait, let me say goodbye to Carly, you dope! … I'll call you later, Carls. Ugh. For the sixth time, I am doing fine. Okay. Later. Goodbye."

Sam puts the phone on its base and tosses her car keys on the table near the door before walking down the narrow hall of her apartment to her room. She sheds her jacket when she passes the living room and forgoes turning the light on in her dark bedroom, pulling her clothes off before climbing into the bed. She pulls the blanket up to her chin and forces her mind blank.

Sleep does not come easy.

It had been nearly two years since Sam had left her hometown of Seattle and decided to settle in Austin, Minnesota after a few short months of idly searching for nothing, for a new life away from her life. She had walked into a women's shelter with nothing but the clothes on her back and a cell phone that had long since lost signal from unpaid bills, and after getting all the help that she needed, they had her relocated to this small apartment.

Sometimes it was too quiet, this place. Despite the fact that it was a building with six apartments, Sam can say that she only ever saw two of its inhabitants. There was Earl, who lived on the same floor as her, right across the hall. He was balding and thin in his mid-sixties with lips as dark as street pavement and skin looking as thin as paper. He smiled at her every time they bumped into the hall, and always tried to engage her in conversation. On the days that Sam took his invitation to go into his apartment to hang out, she always came out smelling like burnt, sweet-smelling paper with a small baggie or two in her fist.

Those were the nights where she let her pulse slow and allowed her mind to wander in the air just as the smoke would.

Then there was Skylar. Sam would find her in the desolate parking lot sometimes, scraping thin tree branch across the cobbled ground. She'd smile that sweet, innocent smile that she had which made Sam's defenses go down, and many times, Sam finds herself sitting beside the little girl on the swing set, listening as she prattles on about her church and fighting parents and that little boy at her school named Timmy that she hates, and Sam has to put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile because she knows for a fact that this Timmy who always pokes her and pinches her on her leg and shares his fruit with her is harboring one hell of a crush.

Skylar takes her away from her mind sometimes, and the distraction is good.

Besides those two that she feels that she can safely call friends, and the few friends she left back in Washington, Sam has no one. The only other people she exchanges words with on a nearly daily basis would be her boss, Dino, and a few of the patrons she has no choice but to communicate with at the dingy diner halfway across the city.

So, a lot of the time, Sam's life is deathly quiet.

She tried on many of occasions to spice up her life, once by attempting to date a high school senior, and when that didn't work out, she allowed herself to be wooed by his older, college-bound brother. Both Jordan and Rick had proved to be sleaze bags who had only wanted her for what she had underneath her jeans. She tried picking herself up by buying the car that she now drove, but the novelty had worn off too soon after she had taken Earl for a spin and 'randomly danced' on the hood of the car with Skylar a few times. She bought a huge entertainment system for the living room, complete with a stereo system that barely fit in the tiny room, and sometimes she would throw a party for herself. If she had a good day at work, she would bop along whatever's playing while cleaning her apartment. If she had a bad day at work, she would force herself to sway away the depressing feelings and thoughts. When she was high—which happened to be more often than she felt safe with it being—she would let the volume reach its peak and zone out, her body sprawled half on the couch.

On this night, after a particularly bad day at work, Sam didn't feel up to listening to music. All she wanted to do was to sleep and let a new day wash away the bad memories.

She pushed her head deeper into the pillow and folded her legs so that she lay in a comforting fetal position on the bed. Still, sleep did not come easy.

::: ::: ::: :::

A scratching noise woke Sam up out of her sleep late the next day. She got up and, bleary eyed, walked to the door and opened it. Skylar flashed her a guilty smile before standing up from her low crouch outside of Sam's apartment.

"What?" Sam grunted, then spotted the pocket mirror the little girl tried to hide behind her back. "Were you trying to spy on me?"

"No, honest!" the girl said. She wilted under Sam's hard stare, though, and admitted, "Yes. But I was only trying to see if you were up. You were sleeping, weren't you?"

Sam yawned.

"Well, it's a good thing I woke you. The mailman just came by!"

"Okay," Sam heard herself say as she stumbled sleepily to her kitchen, leaving the door open so that Skylar could let herself in.

The girl did not disappoint, and sat in one of the kitchen chairs as Sam splashed her face with water from the sink.

"You don't remember, do you?"

Sam patted her face dry. "Remember what?"

"The third week of the third month? You have a package waiting for you downstairs!"

Sam nearly dropped the mug that she was filling with instant coffee. She had forgotten about her and Carly's ritual for every third week of the third month. She had made a promise to her best friend of eleven years that she would send a video tape or snapshots of her life to her at the set date. They started this shortly after Sam left the shelter and called Carly, crying, when she had torn open the package that Carly sent her and saw pictures of everything she missed. Carly, Spencer, the studio, Gibby, her mother, even Lewbert himself. She tried not to think about how she stuffed Freddie's pictures to the back and never gave them a second glance.

It had carried on as a tradition, and although Sam's videos and scrapbooks were filled with nothing but shots of pavement and sky and video diaries, Carly's was always full of life. Full vividness of smiles and crazy people, and of Spencer's son, Gabe, taking his first steps, never failing to put a smile on Sam's face.

How could she forget?

"Shit," she said, and sent a half smile at Skylar when the girl flinched.

"I knew you would forget."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because you're always sleeping. Or working." At that, Skylar pulled a face.

Sam laughed. "Work is what keeps me living like I do." She took a sip of her coffee and walked into her bedroom, where she pulled on a pair of shorts and a loose-fitting sweatshirt. She grabbed her camera off the top shelf of her closet and walked back through the living room and into the kitchen where she found Skylar counting the silverware in her drawer.

Sam smiled. Sometimes a little weirdness from this girl was all she needed.

"Got my camera," she sing-songed and waved it.

Skylar shut the drawer and bounded over to the front door. "Yay! Now we can show Carly my new sticker collection!"


	3. for him, time stops

Freddie stretches in the wide, airy terminal, glad to be in Seattle, finally. The flight was long—longer than what JetBlue had advertised—and twice, when Freddie gratefully found himself falling asleep, the boy in the seat in front of him had woke him up.

"Hey mister!" the boy, too old to be climbing backwards in seats, had hissed at him.

Freddie had opened one eye.

"Is this your first time riding in an airplane?"

"No." Freddie had decided to humor him. "Is it yours?"

"Yes, and I'm not scared!" he crowed triumphantly.

"Well that's good. Airplanes are one of the safest forms of travel," Freddie said around a yawn. The lady to his right who had rosary beads clutched in her hands shot him a glare. He shrugged.

The boy had eyed him warily. "Nuh-uh, cars are."

Freddie tried to hide his incredulous laugh. "Believe me, planes are safer than cars."

"Then how come my cousin didn't die in a car?"

"Huh?"

"My cousin, Ron, died in Afri..can…istan. He was flying in a jet when someone shot him with a missile. His plane went boom, kapow, screech…" Freddie smirked as the boy's sound effects got more creative until the lady next to him, presumably his mother, smacked the back of his head to get him to lower his voice. Upon spotting the grin on Freddie's face, the boy had whispered, "You can't laugh! That's against the rules!"

When Freddie hadn't answered, choosing instead to look out the small window at the clouds below him, the boy continued.

"We're plane buddies. Best friends! You can't laugh at me when I get punished by mom."

"Why not?" Freddie asked, not bothering to conceal his bored tone.

"Because I'll stop being your friend."

"Try me," Freddie had muttered under his breath, but then he had pulled on the provided headphones and settled back to watch some lame Lifetime movie on the small television screen. The boy had, seemingly, gotten bored after a while, and sat back in his seat with a visible huff.

A short while later, as Freddie found himself dozing off yet again, the table hanging off the back of the seat in the front of him jerked, and lukewarm coffee spilled across the crotch and leg of his jeans. "Crap!" he exclaimed, foolishly trying to brush the liquid off with his hands, to no avail.

"Oops!" the boy said around a toothily grin, and his mother shot Freddie a sympathetic look before passing him napkins that she dug out of her huge purse. Freddie waved them away and stood up. It took a bit of maneuvering around the catholic lady who decided to ignore the fact that he wanted to leave his seat, but he finally made it to the aisle. As he was starting down to the bathroom, he heard the boy yell at his mother, "Lemme out, mom! I wanna go help him! He's my best buddy, and that's what friends do!"

Freddie came back from the cramped bathroom to see the boy pouting heavily next to his sleeping mother and sighed when he saw the resolute look on the face of the catholic woman. He mumbled, "Planes are completely dangerous."

That seemed to do the trick; the lady smiled and stood up for him to get back into his seat. He had sat back with a groan and wished fervently for this ride to be over.

Freddie smiled as he walked through the terminal and picked up his bags. When he turned from the belt, he barely had a second to smile before his mother's arms were thrown around his neck.

"Oh, Freddie," she said as she planted kisses on his cheeks, one after the other. Freddie blushed, but allowed himself to be squeezed by his mother, leaning into her hands caressing his cheeks.

"Hello to you, too, mom."

"Oh, goodness, how was the flight?"

"Long," Freddie shrugged, adjusting the bag across his chest. "Boring."

His mother pulled a device akin to a walkie talkie out of her huge purse, and pressed a few buttons, bringing up what seemed to be a timer. "Well, you're right. This flight was thirty-six minutes and fourty-eight seconds past the time it was supposed to arrive, so." She tucked the object back into her bag. "This airplane company can expect a call from me about punctuality."

Freddie laughed and rolled his eyes at her fussing over him during the car ride home. Once in the garage of the Bushwell Plaza, Freddie jumped out of his mother's car and whistled when he saw the 1997 pickup truck model sporting a fresh blue paintjob and gleaming rims, different from when he last saw it. He nearly screamed when he peered into the window and saw the leather upholstery complete with what he deemed to be the most awesome set of accessories ever.

"I can't believe this!" he cried, running his hand along the gleaming door.

"That death trap?" his mother asked as she walked past him and into the building, eyebrow raised.

"Spencer did an amazing job! Oh man." He pulled his hand across his hair. "I have to go thank him now."

"Not before you bring your bags upstairs, take a long, hot tick bath, and eat lunch will you be going to visit anyone, Fredward Karl Benson!"

Freddie shook his head. Twenty years old, and his mother was still forcing him to take tick baths.

::: ::: ::: :::

Carly doesn't see him coming. Her back is to the door as she lounges against her spot on the beanbag chair, and from the angle Freddie gets as he's standing behind her, he can see Gabe resting in her arms, pacifier working in his mouth as he sucks on it.

Freddie doesn't pay attention to what's on the TV, just slowly drops to his knees and wraps his arms around the brunette.

Carly shakes her head and laughs. "Just because I'm holding your baby does not mean that you get to hug me like that." She shakes his arms off.

Freddie chuckles, low in her ear, asks, "I don't remember getting anyone pregnant." He laughs at the way Carly jumps out of her skin, and she looks at him, eyes wide.

"Freddie!" A smile blooms across her lips. "What are you doing here?"

He rearranged his position so that he was kneeling by her and not behind her. "Well… I was feeling guilty for missing Christmas break, so I thought I'd come for Presidents' week. Gotta make it up somehow."

Carly gives him an understanding look. "We know that you were swamped with term papers, so we completely understand. If you had come home in December, you would have probably failed half your classes."

Freddie sucks in a sharp breath and smiles when Gabe peels open one eye to look quizzically at him.

"How is NYU treating you, anyway?" Carly asks.

"Fair."

"Cool," she nods, then looks back up at the TV. Freddie glances at it as well.

What he sees on the screen are small fingers pointing out various bright and glittery stickers, sees the camera being jerked around by inexperienced hands while a child's voice says, "And that's my Hello Kitty sticker that I got from Auntie Deb last week. Mommy didn't want her over because she argues a lot with Daddy, but I let Aunt Deb in anyway when she gave me this sticker. Isn't it cute? Say yes." The camera bobs up and down as the girl tries to imitate nodding, and she giggles. The camera turns, and Freddie finds himself looking into a face with wide green eyes nearly covered by dirty blonde bangs. Her mouth is stained blue and there is a lollipop in one hand. She smiles, and Freddie finds himself smiling back.

"Who is she?" he asks Carly.

"Skylar Anderson. She lives on the—wait. I'm not sure which floor she lives on. Sam never told me."

Freddie's heart jumps at this, and he has to gulp to keep from gasping. "Sam?"

"Mm-hmm," Carly nods, shaking her finger that is tightly clasped in one of Gabe's tiny hands.

"Hey, munchkin," a painfully familiar voice yells, and Freddie looks back up at the TV, settling down more comfortable on the floor. He dangles his arms over his knees. "What are you doing with that sugary concoction of blue dye near my precious camera?"

The girl smiles at something over the camera, and shrugs. "Carly doesn't mind? Do you Carly?"

Carly, seated beside Freddie, lets out an amused snort.

"Yeah, well, Carly didn't pay for this." The camera is snatched up into the air, and Freddie gets a glance of bright pink sneakers and acid wash jeans before the camera is settled down.

Freddie feels a sort of excitement building in his chest when the older girl moves back from the lens. Time slows down for him as he watches her go farther away, until all of her t-shirt is exposed, until she only has to take one more step before he can see her face.

Carly shoots him a glance and he smiles tightly at her.

The girl takes one last step back, and Freddie's breath is knocked out of him.

She's… beautiful. Even more so from the last time he saw her, in her teal dress with her long curly hair spilling down her back. He tries not to remember the last image he had of her tight, pained face, and instead focuses on this one.

The first thing Freddie notices is that she doesn't have the long hair that made her stand out once upon a time. Instead, it was straight and short and lighter, platinum blonde, cropped close to her chin where it spilled out of her small ponytail. It was such an extremely different look that Freddie exclaimed, "Whoa."

Carly smirked at him. "Different, right?"

"Um… understatement." Freddie shook his head.

Sam is barely smiling, one corner of her lips tilted, one hand coming up to tuck a wayward strand behind her ear. Her eyes are intense in its focus, and Freddie could literally feel her stare burning his chest, down into his core.

Her lips begin moving, and it takes Freddie a while to concentrate on what she's saying.

"… has got these awards for being the greatest forward on his soccer team. I mean, he led his teammates to win _four_ games. Count 'em. _Four_. Can you believe it? He is the greatest guy ever."

"Who is she talking about?"

"Rick, her boyfriend," Carly coos before rolling her eyes. "She swears that she's not head over heels in love with him, but I can see it."

Freddie swallows down his disappointment. "How long has she been with him?"

Carly pulls a face. "I don't know. They seem to be on and off."

Freddie turns back to the video, hears Sam prattle on in that way that she only knows how about the goings on in her life, the prospect of her promotion at her job, the car she bought, how she's thinking of painting the walls of her bedroom yellow and some other things. By the time the film cut off, Freddie's head was reeling with information, more than he would have liked to take in during one sitting, but enough to have him satisfied and more. Craving to know more about this girl who had become a mystery to him more than two years ago, who had went on to become the star of the beautiful nightmares that kept him waking at odd times in the night.

Carly sighed. "I really miss her."

Freddie didn't want to admit it—because she had been the selfish one to walk out of their lives so many years ago-- but he missed her as well.

Carly handed Freddie the baby and stood up, stretching. "I'm gonna go get some water. You want something?"

"No thanks," Freddie answered.

He stared at the TV, at the frozen image of Sam leaning over to turn the camera off. Her eyes seemed impossibly blue in the way that is sliced through his skin, and he had to concentrate on breathing.


	4. girl gone bad, gone sour

She picks up on the third ring, lifting the phone with her pinky and thumb and placing it strategically between her shoulder and her chin. She is sweating, her hair is all over her forehead, there are slim chunks of meat on her hands, and she is in the middle of chopping onions.

All of that, and… "Yes?" she breathes kindly into the phone, moving back over to the kitchen counter.

"Hey, blondie," her best friend answers her.

"Hey, Carly. What's up?"

"Just got finished looking after Gabe yet again. He is getting to be such a hassle in his Oshkosh B'gosh overalls. I think he's trying to be like you when he grows up."

Sam laughs. "Better keep those home videos away from him."

"Oh, I _know_. You're the epitome of girl gone bad," she says, sarcastically.

Sam hums into the receiver.

"I was starting to create a new video of him saying all of our names in alphabetical order, but the little spawn threw a fit because all he wanted to do was drool over the camera lens."

"Well, it's obvious that he's hungry! Do you guys feed the baby?"

"He is a big boy."

"Big boys have to eat, too, Carly."

"Speaking of eating, what is that you're making? I can smell it over the phone line."

Sam laughed, rinsed her hands and adjusted the phone on her shoulder. "Just some spaghetti."

Carly sighs. "Where were your cooking skills when I needed them on the nights that Spencer went out on dates or was covered in paint?"

"Lying dormant until I was living on my own and forced to use them," she answers. "To be honest, I had so much time on my hands when I first moved into this place that I had no choice but to read something. So I figured, why not read something with yummy things in it?"

Sam can practically hear the fond expression Carly gets on her face. "Still. You need to get your butt over here and cook me a three-course meal."

"Soon," Sam laughs.

"No, you should come _now_. At least, while Freddie's here so I can feel like I have _some_ of my old life back."

Sam chokes on air. "Freddie's in Seattle?"

"Yeah, he came early this morning, and Ms. Benson immediately threw him in a tick bath." Carly laughs, but Sam doesn't feel like laughing, so she doesn't.

Instead, she says with not a little bit of scorn, "Is he begging you back yet?"

"Sam," Carly hiccups on a laugh. "Need I remind you that he broke up with me?"

"Okay, and?" Sam voices. "The two of you have got a messed up relationship. No one knows if you're on, off, or who really wants who..."

"Sam, I assure you, we are not interested in one another. Besides, I've got Kevin."

"A boyfriend never stopped him from groveling over you bef—"

"Besides, I've got Kevin," Carly repeats, raising her voice over Sam's. "I've got Kevin and he is adorable and funny and totally sweet, and do you want to know what he did on our one year anniversary last week?"

Sam sits down at the table as Carly takes over the conversation, speaking of her 'totally awesome, totally cool' boyfriend and her interview to become a TV personality with Seattle Beat, while she fights back against the churning in her stomach. It's odd, she knows, she shouldn't feel this way from just one mention of his name, but she can't help herself. She leans her head down on the table and focuses on taking deep breaths.

By the time that Carly is done speaking, the strings are done boiling and Sam is straining them, the heat making her hair stick to her forehead once again.

"How are you and Rick doing?"

Sam hurriedly swallows back the guilt of lying to her best friend, and answers shortly, "Good. We're alright."

Carly hums, but doesn't press the matter.

And it's not like Sam wants to lie, but she doesn't want to make Carly sick with worry. If Carly knew that she were here, basically alone, with no love interest—which would be, like, a crime to the brunette—Sam has no doubt in her mind that Carly would mail her a ticket to the next flight to Seattle.

She just didn't want for Carly to worry.

"I think Spencer is regressing," she says after a long moment of silence.

"Why is that?"

"Because he's swearing up and down that he sees Gibby in that little monster. I'd like to think differently."

"But he kind of does look like Gibby," Sam says, licking her fingers. "Could you imagine you and Gibby having a baby? It would look just like Gabe."

There's a long pause on the phone and Sam hears faint shifting before Carly breathes, "Sam, never let that thought cross your mind ever again."

Sam snorts and digs into her spaghetti. "You know what this food needs?"

Carly takes her time answering, and when she does, Sam can hear the hesitance in her voice. "What?"

"Some tacos."

And then Carly laughs, and Sam laughs. And for a minute, she feels happy again.

::: ::: ::: :::

Sam wakes up to the faint sound of music playing underneath the sound of a disconnected phone call. She lifts her head off of the living room floor and grabs the phone, scrubbing a hand across her mouth as she presses the end button.

Her neck is stiff, her back is stiff, and her mouth feels full of cotton. She should have known that falling asleep in the living room on the phone with Carly would be a bad idea.

Sam groans as she palms the back of her head and stumbles to her feet. She takes long shower, sighing as the kinks in her neck are massaged underneath the hard spray. After having a cup of coffee and a slice of toast, Sam pulls on her jacket before leaving the apartment, making sure to lock the door behind her. She takes the steps two at a time and leaves the apartment building. She pulls her jacket tighter across her chest.

It is February, cold, and Sam can see her breath billowing before her in a smoky cloud.

She blows into her hands when she's seated in her car and turns the key in the ignition. Before she pulls out of her parking spot, she looks into the streaked overhead mirror, takes in the sight of her wide eyes and pale pink lips, her hair hastily brushed back into a sloppy ponytail.

_If only he could see me now_, she thought wryly. If only she were to take Carly's invitation up to go to Seattle for the week. Joke with Spencer, hug her mother, play with Gabe. Have her spirit crushed again by Freddie Benson.

"No," she breathed. She knew that she wasn't going to go to Seattle. She didn't think she'd be able to handle seeing him again.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before shifting her car into gear and driving off.

::: ::: ::: :::

Sam had to knock on his door four times before he finally opened it. He stared out at her from the small opening in his door, eyes red and warm. He smiled.

"What can I do for you, Samantha Puckett?"

Sam brings her hand from behind her back, a vegetable held in her fist. "Got you a cucumber," she says.

His eyes light up and he laughs, throwing his door open wide. "Just what I needed. How did you know?"

"Because you asked me to pick one up for you after work."

He lets her in his apartment, walks down the hall to the kitchen, calling, "You're just in time for my special gumbo soup."

"Thanks, Earl. I'm starving," Sam replies, and takes a seat at the tall table right as Earl places a bowl in front of her. She smiles politely and nods her head, raking fingers through too-blonde hair as Earl talks about one thing or another—his memories at home growing up, the last wife that left him, the weather and what it could mean for the youth who decided to stay cooped up in their rooms playing video games. He calls global warming nonsense and says some other things, but Sam can hardly understand him through the thick accent he has.

Her food has long gone cold when Earl stretches and ambles over to the drawer in the counter, rifling through its contents. "Thank you for keeping me company, Miss Puckett," he says in that gravelly voice he has.

"No problem," Sam shrugs.

Earl turns around and in his hand is a small baggie of hash. It takes a lot of her willpower, but Sam manages to shake her head when he stretches it toward her,

"No thanks," Sam says around a yawn, and makes a show of looking out the window to the darkening sky.

Earl quirks a brow. "Oh, come on, it's the least I could do for being blessed with company from a beautiful girl."

"I…" She wants her mind to go blank, to travel anywhere and nowhere, to finally let go after a long day of work and worries. She stands up. "I shouldn't."

Earl nods, tells her goodnight when she makes to leave for the door. Once she's back in her apartment, Sam leans on the door for a few minutes. Then she pulls herself together and turns on the stereo. She doesn't know what song is playing, doesn't really care, just lets the tune soothe her.

She sleeps fitfully that night.


	5. coming to you

Freddie awakes from a fitful sleep that morning, sitting up in his bed and glancing at the bedside alarm clock which tells him that it's only just reaching seven o'clock. He lies back against his pillow and thinks of the dream he had, of the girl with the nearly white hair and ice cold eyes, the girl standing with her back to a taller brunette. She goes against what he should want to want, what he should have, but Freddie isn't a fool to his feelings. He knows that his heart is aiming for the smaller girl. Her, with so much spunk and attitude that it scared Freddie.

Scared Freddie to think that she is what kept him from moving on with his life for a long while.

He climbs out from under his Galaxy Wars comforter when he hears his mother pattering around outside of his bedroom. He sheds his t-shirt and pajama pants on the floor of the bathroom and steps into the shower before the water has even had time to warm up. After washing himself, he holds his head up into the stream and lets the water run over his face, feeling it cleanse something deep in him even as it runs into his eyes and up his nose.

He sputters after a while and gets out, slips into a casual button up and jeans.

When he leaves his room, he finds that his mother left a plate of breakfast out for him on the small kitchen island and there is a note tacked on the fridge door, telling Freddie to soak his dishes in 120 degree Fahrenheit water. Freddie rolls his eyes at the bottom of the note which read, "Mommy will come home from work at six to clean up your dishes and fix you dinner," along with more than a few hearts scrawled alongside it. He sits down and eats as much as he could force down, which turns out to be just a bit, and scrapes the rest of the food out. He sets the dishes in the sink and, forgetting to fill the sink with water, he leaves his apartment to go for a walk.

His feet take him to downtown Seattle, past shops barely open and along roads with minimal traffic. He turns corners, cuts through small paths, and soon finds himself in the old playground just a small ways away from Adams Elementary school where he had met the people he knows now. He perches himself precariously on the small spring rider and chuckles when he has a memory of the first time meeting Carly and Sam.

They were eight years old and Carly sat next to Freddie on the duck spring rider, her dark hair flying in the wind and she laughed delightfully at the jerky movements. She had smiled at Freddie, and stook her tongue out when he didn't immediately look away. Freddie remembers that moment like the back of his hand, it's so ingrained in his memory. A seven year old Gibby had come up to Carly and offered her some of his licorice stick, and had blushed when Carly leaned over to kiss him on the cheek to thank him for the candy.

Suddenly, a tail of blonde hair hit Freddie in the face as a girl barreled past him. She shouted, "Are you cheating on me, Gibson?"

Gibby hadn't answered in time, and found himself on the ground, looking up in awe of the girl who now held his package of licorice sticks. Freddie would think that the boy would be mad at the violent girl, but if anything, he just seemed to blush harder.

He felt indignation rise up in him and called out, "Hey!" Gibby was his friend and he'll be goshdarned if he allows some girl to push him around like that.

The girl whipped her head around to him and narrowed her blue eyes at him. She had grabbed onto the front of his spring rider, propelling him forward on his seat. He remembers the crinkle of the pack of candy being crushed under her hand, the way the wind blew a strand of curly hair across her face, splitting it in two. He remembers gulping under her scrutinizing stare.

"Mind your business, dorkboy," she had said before suddenly letting go of the equipment and pushing him off at the same time so that he was lying flat on his back. Freddie had blinked and saw her halfway across the playground, Gibby following.

And then he looked at the pretty brunette. She smirked at him, took a bite out of the red string of candy, and ran to the swings.

Freddie was torn between looking at the free girl swinging high in the sky, hair around her head like some kind of flowing halo, and the other, angry girl, who did nothing short of knocking over sandcastles and kicking kids off the monkey bars.

Freddie stood up from the springy toy and breathed in deeply the air before walking out of the park. He stopped to get an ice cream cone on the way home, the memories of childhood spurning his sweet tooth and climbed to the eighth floor of the plaza with sticky-sweet lips. Carly's door was half open and Freddie let himself in.

::: ::: ::: :::

He would like to pretend that it didn't happened, that he did not embarrass himself with that girly scream he let out, but he knew that it was no use. Carly was rolling on the couch, pointing and laughing at him, and Freddie blushed and tossed a pillow at her.

"Shut up."

"That was… by far…" Carly hiccupped and swiped at her eyes. "The absolute most high-pitched scream I've ever heard from you."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "No, it wasn't, you're exaggerating."

Carly shrugged. "I might be. I mean, there was the time when we went to see School Dance Disaster part three. You barely made it through half the movie before running to the bathroom, and you stayed in there for the rest of the movie!" At this, Carly collapsed into a fresh bout of giggles. "Aw, poor Freddie, too scared to watch big boy horror movies?" Carly cut the TV off and Freddie tried not to let his relief show.

The seconds flew by and Freddie blurted, "Does Sam ever visit you?" The question had been building on his tongue for hours and Freddie felt something lift off his shoulders when Carly answered.

"No," she said. "Not since the morning after Spencer's wedding have I seen her in person."

Freddie's shoulders slumped. "Wow, what a friend," he forced himself to mumble, and Carly leaned over to punch him in the arm. He gave her a questioning look.

"If you're calling her a crap friend, you might as well call me a crap friend, as well."

"Why should I?"

"I haven't visited her, either." She twisted her lips to the side, then sighed. "It's been so busy around here with the new baby and my internship at Seattle Beat, that I just…"

"Well, at least you send her videos," he says, consolingly.

"Yeah," Carly nods. "Yeah—hey, what happened to you and Sam? Why aren't you guys friends anymore?"

"I don't know," Freddie says and looks away. He was never a good liar. He feels Carly's penetrating stare on him and continues, "She left and I was mad. It wasn't fair. So we just… stopped talking."

"You can remain mad for only so long."

"I know." He bites on his thumb nail, feels something like anxiousness spreading in his chest, takes a deep breath and says, "I'm thinking of going to where she is. You know, to visit."

A beat skips, and then Carly is bouncing on the couch. "That's a great idea, Freddie! She would be stoked."

"Yeah," Freddie swallows back the cloying feeling. "I guess."

Later that day, Freddie summons up all the courage he can and packs what he feels he may need on the trip. His mother comes home to a silent Freddie, and over dinner, he tells her that he's going on a road trip back to New York. Predictably, his mother begins squalling, fretting over him about the dangers of long car rides, but Freddie is resolute. It's late into the night when Marissa finally gives in.

Freddie eyes his bed warily, knowing that he wouldn't get good sleep in it from the combination of his relentless dreams and anxiety churning in the spot right below his throat. He chooses instead to work on sketching out his route on the map Spencer had lent him, and soon falls asleep at his desk.


	6. as a time of day

Sam clenches her teeth against the pain of her third tattoo being etched into her skin.

The tattoo artist glances up at her. "You alright, sweetheart?"

"I'm just fine," she answers, gripping the hard leather seat. She chances a look down the length of her body to where the needle is digging into the skin of her hip, and feels a wave of nausea overcome her senses. She groans.

"Not much for pain, are you?"

"Nope. Not much for pain." Sam looks up at the ceiling where the lights are bright and posters hang down from where they peeled off.

"So, why are you getting a tattoo?" The artist stops, fiddles with the small machine.

"I don't know," she mutters truthfully. She had started getting them only four months ago out of uncertainty, of feeling like she didn't quite know herself like she used to. So she had wanted to brand her body to bring herself back down to where she belonged. Getting inked was what made her feel kinda like Sam Puckett again, and not the heartbroken porcelain doll she felt herself becoming.

She winces when the artist puts the needle back on her skin.

After the process is done, Sam is standing in front of a mirror, barely listening as the tattoo artist explains to her about what must be done to keep it free of infection. She's narrowing her eyes at her tattoo, turning this way and that.

'So it goes,' it read in small font. "So it goes," she muttered.

The artist had her sit down and patched a bandage over her fresh tattoo, then passed her a salve for a small price.

Sam takes her time getting back to the town of Austin, and by the time she pulls into the gravely lot, it is a little past four and the sun is starting to settle. She climbs out of her car with little hassle and doesn't notice the new car in the lot—the blue pickup truck that sat just a few spots away from where she usually parks her car.

She's bombarded by Skylar when she steps into the small foyer. She winces and tugs small arms from around her waist, away from her smarting tattoo.

"I missed you!" Skylar blinks at her and smiles.

Sam tugs her hair out of its ponytail and turns, heading up the stairs to her second floor apartment. "How was school," she asks Skylar when she hears small feet pattering after her.

"I didn't go. Daddy got in a fight with mom and left late last night, and this morning, mommy wouldn't wake up, so there was nobody to take me to school."

"Yeah? What happened to Aunt Deb?"

"I don't know," Skylar pants, climbing up the stairs after Sam.

Sam sends Skylar a pained look when she reaches her door, says kindly, "Listen, I'm not much up for company right now."

"Oh," the girl's face falls.

Sam swallows her guilt. "Why don't you go keep your mother company until your father comes back?" She holds her breath until the girl has trudged through the doors leading to the stairwell, and once past her door, she ignores the two missed calls blinking on her phone, turns on her stereo, and sits down with her camera.

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie lets go of a long breath when he's seated in his truck again. He had gone on a walk after pulling to a stop in front of the short, three-floor apartment building almost three hours ago. During his pass of the back of the building, he came across the young girl that he saw in the video he had watched with Carly three days ago, and stopped, fidgeting. The girl looked up at him with a quizzical expression on her face.

She sat back on the ground, fingering a doll she held in her lap. "Who are you, sir?"

"I'm Freddie," he answered confidently. "One of Sam's best friends."

"Sam never mentioned you."

Freddie's nerve faltered. He let out a slow breath and said, "Yeah, I grew up with her in Seattle. I guess she doesn't remember me much."

The girl hummed and shrugged, turning back to the arrangement of various toys and dolls around her.

"Sam lives in this building, right?"

She nodded.

"Could you, by any chance, let me know which floor she lives on?"

"Sam lives in three-b, the second floor. But she's not at home right now."

"Oh." Freddie felt something like relief wash over him, if only for the extra time he would get before having to see her again.

"Yeah, I tried knocking," the girl continued. "I wanted her to come and play with me, because, see Bonnie?" She lifted a redheaded doll. "She just got married to John, and I wanted Sam to take them to the swingset where their house is so that Cortney could visit them." She gestures first to the swingset, then to a shorter, blonde doll.

Freddie nods, lost.

"Hey!" she exclaims, widening her eyes at him. "You can take them to the swings!"

"Um, I don't know…"

"C'mon, mister, please?" And she smiles, and Freddie thinks, _that's what Sam sees every day_, before giving in.

Time flies as he animatedly entertains the girl, and before he knew it, a few hours had passed and the girl was gathering up her toys to go inside for an early supper. She glanced at Freddie, said, "I'm glad to see Sam getting other friends," before bouncing off.

Freddie had brushed the gravel off of the seat of his jeans and walked around the building once more before going to sit on the hood of his truck. He watched as the sun began to fall, breathed in deep to quell his jumping stomach, and stretched one last time before sliding into his car.

He closes his eyes for a few minutes, and then grabs his phone, thinking of calling his roommate back in New York to ask him how he's doing when he sees a car pull into the lot.

His stomach does a flip and he has to tangle his fingers together on his lap to keep them from tapping a staccato beat against his legs as the person he's been waiting on steps outside of her car.

Her head is down towards the ground and she walks slowly, as if afraid of her day ending when she gets into the building. Freddie thinks about going after her, thinks of her being all smiles and open arms as he talks to her for the first time in two years, but he crushes the urge.

He waits a long beat after she's disappeared into the building, then climbs out of his truck and makes his way toward the door.


	7. reaching something, maybe far

**I want to apologize for the months' long wait. Multiple projects + huge family + three seasons of Friday Night Lights make for a busy me. Enjoy.**

**- - - -**

He's nervous. His hands are shaking, he feels beads of sweat forming at the spot just below his hairline, his temple, and in his throat is a lump threatening to choke him. He raises his fist to the door, but second guesses himself before he could lay knuckles against the barrier, takes another breath and squeezes his eyes tight before blinking them open. There's spots now clouding the edges of his eyesight, colorful and evasive, and he doesn't know exactly what it is he's doing here.

He thinks back on his relationship with this girl he once knew. How alive she was, how she breathed and lived brutal excitement, how feisty she was, how much of a terror she seemed to be all of the time. Except.

Except for when he would trace his fingers along the side of her arms, when she would settle down just for a bit. Just for the time when they were together. When her noise level would decrease dramatically and her grins would turn into soft smiles, and maybe her touch was a little less bruising than it would have been had they not been alone, where they were, in their own world.

He thought about her all of the time. He loved her. He missed her. He's so anxious that he feels like his teeth might start chattering any second now.

He shook his head and rubbed his palm across his chin. Maybe he was at the wrong apartment, or even the wrong place. Maybe he had taken a wrong turn off of the interstate and sat outside of a mistakenly familiar apartment building, talked to the wrong little girl who looked so much like the girl in the video who knew a different person by the name of Sam who happened to live here. It could be a coincidence, he thought. Everyone but him was mistaken. Sam couldn't, wouldn't, live here, in this decrepit building in the middle of anywhere and nowhere, on her own as if she could survive without anything short of a crowd around her at all times. She was Sam. She wouldn't want this.

But then again, maybe this was a different Sam, the one he _did_ see in the video with the short hair and the piercing eyes and the poignant half-smile, the Sam he last saw in Washington before she left them for good, not even a goodbye to her best friend of nearly ten years who had worried herself to death over where she could be. The one whose eyes were glazed over with tears as she stood in her gorgeous green dress at the wedding reception and told him, voice hard and teeth clenched, good. Good that he was with Carly, good that he finally got what he wanted, good that he was the prize-winning champion of a six-year long courtship and now had a great reason to celebrate.

Except for the fact that he had felt nowhere near to wanting to rejoice. He had gotten the girl, and in the process, had let another one go. He hadn't known what he was doing at the time, didn't for a second think that Sam had enough feelings for him to run off, heartbroken, as she had. He hadn't thought that she wouldn't be able to pick herself up from this without going halfway across the country.

She must hate him, he thought, and that's all that was running through his mind.

"She must hate me. She doesn't want anything to do with me so I shouldn't be here. She must hate me, she has to, she hates me," he said under his breath, and then bit his lip to keep him from repeating the mantra. He laid his head on the wall and breathed deeply to try and settle his nerves, exhaled as he tried to banish thoughts of what might happen if she opens this door from his mind, and then straightened up. Standing tall, chin raised, stomach flipping, he lifts his hand and raps his knuckles against the door.

::: ::: ::: :::

Sam is chewing on a pen and looking over a newspaper, her feet curled under her on the couch, when she hears the knock.

"Skylar," she groans and slams the paper on a cushion. She stands up and pulls her sweater tighter around her as she makes her way to the door. "Skylar, I thought I told you that I didn't want company right now."

When nothing but silence answers her, she furrows her brow and pressed her ear against the door, listening out for who that might be. Nobody ever knocked on her door, with the exclusion of Skylar. Not even Earl would knock. There was no one she knew who would give her a personal visit, and the thought had her stomach roiling in apprehension.

Her fingers curled against the wood as she called, "Who is it?"

A minute passed, and then there was yet another knock. She stood back from the door, wrapping her arms around herself. There was an uncomfortable feeling slithering down the back of her neck. She didn't think that she would like what would greet her on the other side. It could be just about anyone, but she had a feeling. She had a feeling.

She shook her head of the nonsense floating around inside and steeled herself, took a deep breath, and gripped the knob in her hand.

Her breath was knocked out of her when she saw who stood on the other side of the threshold.

He looked the same from the last time she had seen him, with the exception of a few inches added to his stature. He had on a blue jacket with a brown leather bag slung across his torso, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. His feet shuffled nervously. The sight of him nearly made her stumble.

He, him, _Freddie_.

Her eyes trailed back up to his face, and she caught him looking back at her with apprehensive brown eyes.

"Sam?" he asked cautiously, and she did stumble this time when she took a step back.

"You, what are you—" She shook her head, trying to quell that stifling feeling that was building up in the back of her throat threatening to make her voice shake. "What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?"

He flashed an anxious smile before clearing his throat. "Carly. She told me where you were."

"Oh, of course. How else would you—" Sam cut herself off. She leaned against the door and repeated her question. "What are you doing here?"

"I came here to see you as a… as a friend because I haven't heard from you in such a long time. Are you going to let me in?"

Sam paused. She thought about the reason as to why he might be here, showing up at her door after two years. Granted, it was she who had run away from him, and him-and-Carly, and everything else that had pushed down on her, weighing heavily on her shoulders, but the years were long and contact with Freddie was null, and the way they had parted, the final words that were said. They just… They shouldn't have to be where they are now, with him standing outside of her door, yet still so far away, hopeful—and that was hope, Sam could acknowledge, that was making her kind of dizzy—and dreading, and Sam can feel it, drying the back of her tongue and making her stomach ache.

But she felt so aged inside, a lot more mature, and so she thinks that she should be able to handle speaking to him like the decent person she never was whenever it came to him without flipping out as if her heart weren't torn unmercifully from her chest.

Unsure as she was, she cleared her throat and took a step back, said, "Sure. Come in." His smile got a little wider as he stepped inside and Sam turned away from him, closing the door. "So," she said once she felt as if she had her breathing under control (because _he_ was here, and _he_ was inside of her apartment, her space, and it felt just as invasive and foreign and _raw_ as it had been when they were younger and he pressed his body close to hers and his intoxicating smell had flood her mind). "Do you want some coffee or anything? I just made a pot a short while ago."

"That sounds great," he said, and Sam can hear him treading after her as she turns toward the kitchen.

She's almost robotic in the way that she brings a mug down to the counter and pours a decently sized cup, is apprehensive but not forgetful enough to know that Freddie can read her and probably notices her rigidity. But it's not something that she thinks she can help. Not even a few deep, usually soothing breaths make a difference.

"Thanks," he says, accepts the coffee. It sits between his palms as he surveys the small kitchen and peers out into the small living room that should be visible from his vantage point, and Sam leans against a counter, arms across her chest as she stares at the wisps rising from the drink.

"Satisfied?" she asks when he finally brings his eyes back to her.

"It's a nice place," is all he says, and he brings the mug to his lips.

"Yeah, right. This place is a flop." She looks down at the counter and picks idly at a piece of peeling linoleum. "There's a wet spot in the corner of the living room ceiling, the toilet won't flush properly, and the damn cabinet… It's crooked." She trails off, sure that she's told him how pathetic her life has become and angry at herself for the sympathetic look he gives her.

"I can help you fix it," he offers, eyeing the crooked cabinet.

Sam laughs humorlessly. "Thanks, but no thanks. I've got the landlord coming in soon."

He stares at her for a few second more before sitting higher in his seat, smiling. "So, how is everything?"

"It's okay."

"I heard about Rick, and Carly tells me that he's good for you."

"I suppose," Sam answered tightly, angry at both Carly for telling him this and at herself for lying in the first place. She tries to mask her scowl. "He's real nice."

He pauses and looks at her warily. "Carly misses you."

"I know she does, okay?"

"Are you sure that I can't fix that?" He points once again to the cabinet. "I mean, I am kinda handy, I don't know if you remember. Give me a hammer and an hour and I can have it in top shape."

"No thank you, Freddie," she said, and her words were laced with more vitriol that she'd have liked, and she knew that she should take a breath to calm herself, but she continued anyway. "And quit pretending like you came here to sip coffee and catch up and be a _handyman_. Just ask the questions that I know you're dying to."

"Fine," he said and nudged his mug away before setting hard, accusing eyes on her. "Why did you leave Seattle?"

"Next question."

He raised his brows. "Next question? Okay. Why is it that you have been keeping in contact with Carly and not me?"

"Are you serious?" Sam asked, and he shrugged in reply. "She's my best friend. That _means_ something."

"And _we're_ not best friends? Sam?" His jaw twitched when she turned her back to him. "Or at least, _was_ best friends?"

Sam's hands gripped the edge of the counter as she hissed, "I don't know if you noticed, Freddie, but we were never best friends. Nowhere near."

"More or less," he said.

"More _and_ less," Sam corrected, and she stared him in the eyes with the same hard expression he held. "More and less, so I'm going to cut right through all the bullshit, all of your prying questions and everything to let you know that you are the absolute worst type of man and you shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you. Did you even think, for one second, about the people you hurt by disappearing? Your family? Your friends?"

She threw up her arms. "You know what? _Yes_, I did. I did. I know they were worried sick, and I'm sorry for that. And I knew that I would hurt someone with what I chose to do, and I'm sorry for that, too. I just… I needed to go somewhere, okay? I couldn't stay there as hurt as I was. I couldn't stay. The least I can do is apologize for hurting them." Sam took a deep breath and, through clenched teeth, added, "At least _I can apologize_."

The small kitchen was silent for a few seconds before Freddie's fingers intertwined on the countertop and he asked, voice stoic, "Are you saying that I should be sorry for something? Sam? _Sam_," he called after her as she walked out of the kitchen.

Her heart was thumping a little too wildly in her chest, she could feel a headache threatening to pound her skull and the absolute _last_ thing she wanted was to have a breakdown in front of Freddie. But he was pushing her too much, making her reach her, evidently, very short boiling point, and Sam was afraid of what might happen if she stayed in the same room with him for even a minute more.

"Okay. Okay, that's fine, just be a coward once again and walk away."

Sam whirled around in fury, blinking back something she felt stinging her eyes. "So, _I'm_ a coward, Freddie?"

He stopped walking toward her when he reached the couch and he shrugged, his brows furrowed in anger. "I mean, if that's what you're proving yourself to be time and time again."

He was wrong; she just couldn't put up with this heartache and headache again. She couldn't, she wouldn't. She shook her head. "How about you just leave?"

"I can't. I came here to talk."

"This conversation is over," she said and turned into the room, slamming the door closed behind her.


	8. behind brown eyes

Freddie raised his head from his hands when he heard the turn of a doorknob and his stomach knotted as he watched Sam come out from the room, head bowed. Her eyes, when she looked at him, were dull in the way he knew to mean that she was trying to hide a strong emotion.

A great attempt, he had to give her that, but a split second of faulty guarding was all it took for Freddie to see that she was emotionally hurting. He knew exactly why that was, and he knew that he had to get himself out of the picture so that she could go back to being the carefree and happy person that had shone through the video, the person that she showed Carly and the one that she couldn't be around Freddie.

He rose from the couch and tugged at his jacket. "So, I should…" He trailed off, tried again. "I had no business saying what I did earlier and you're absolutely right, I should go. I shouldn't be here. I should just… Yeah." He picked up his bag, which was reclining against the wall, and tried mustering up a smile for Sam. He knew that what showed, instead, was a grimace, and he winced.

"Sit down," Sam said, and Freddie obeyed a bit reluctantly. "How long are you staying in town?" She asked when he was fully seated.

He shifted the bag around on his lap, had to think. "Well… Classes start in less than a week, and that's when I'll have to be in New York. For, you know, class."

She nodded and blinked slowly, looking past him. "The couch has your name on it."

Freddie barely contained himself from leaping to his feet. "No, Sam. Really, that's okay."

"You can't sleep in a car and I'm trying to be nice here," she said sharply, and then walked past him to the kitchen, picking up a small mug from the side table as she went. "That's unless you have someone _else_ to shack up with this far from Washington _and_ New York."

Freddie didn't answer because she was right—he didn't have anyone else to stay with and he could hardly navigate himself around this city without getting lost before finding a suitable motel, and so the truck was really his last choice. He sat still as he heard Sam move through the kitchen, dishes clinking and drawers being opened and shut, and then looked up when she emerged, a mug held toward him in an outstretched hand.

Sam rolled her eyes and huffed when he gave her a questioning look. "Milk and sugar, right?"

"Yeah. Thank you." He took a sip of the warm coffee and watched as Sam went to a window, perching herself on the sill.

"There's a burger joint just at the end of the road for when you get hungry because I don't have much to eat here, the bathroom's right down there, can't miss it, and I'll see you in the morning."

Freddie hastily swallowed his mouthful of coffee and asked incredulously, "You're going to bed? Already?" The face on his watch showed the time to be earlier than eight.

She frowned and rubbed her head. "It's just—you came over late and my head hurts, so… So, let me just…"

"Okay, yeah," he said, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Um… Have a good night."

"Later." She shut her door softly behind her, and Freddie stayed up for a short while after, staring into the bottom of his mug.

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie awakes from the sound of a door closing and he raises his head to look over the back of the couch toward the source of the noise, finds it to his dismay to be the front door. He lets his head fall back to the cushion with a groan, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. There are early morning sounds coming through the window—the incessant beeping of a garbage truck, birds twittering, cars starting in the early hours daylight—and Freddie allows himself half an hour of extra sleep before he's groggily rising into a sitting position.

His back is killing him and his mouth feels as if it were stuffed with cotton, and then he looks up and forgets about his discomfort. There is a picture frame standing on the TV set and Freddie spares a thought as to how he had managed to not see it the night before, and then he's standing in front of the TV, frame in hand.

It's a photo of the three of them taken a few weeks before the wedding—before Sam's abrupt departure—if Freddie could remember correctly. In it, Carly is scowling into the camera, arms crossed. Sam is standing beside her with a grimace marring her face and Freddie, on the other side of the small blonde, is trying and failing spectacularly at holding a stern look. His eyes are clearly showing amusement while his lips are pressed into a thin line. All three of them had been exasperated taking this picture for Spencer, standing next to one of his latest sculptures titled, "Kid at Work, No More Play." He had made it specifically for them, this huge dangerous contraption that seemed to have chocolate sauce oozing out of its many crevices, spilling over lit bulbs.

Freddie rubs his eyes and peers closer to the picture, at the spot where Sam is holding onto his jacket sleeve. He remembers the tug, recalls looking down to see her biting a smile, rolling her eyes toward Spencer. He remembers her pulling at his sleeve, propelling him forward and saying, "Come on, Fredelupe, Carlita. Let's kick this dud."

"But I have to take a picture with the sculpture in the middle of you guys," Spencer pleaded, and Carly had given him a sympathetic shrug.

"Dude, I am not letting that anywhere near me," Sam had laughed, her fingers tightening briefly, and when she let go, there had been a shy smile on her face.

Freddie remembers dimly hearing Carly say to her brother, "She has a point," and the older Shay whining after them. And then Carly had left them alone, just for a few minutes, but it was enough. Freddie had Sam pinned against the wall in less than two seconds, his tongue licking into her mouth and her grip tightening in his hair. He remembers the amazing sounds she made and how she had kissed him with the same degree of fervor, battling her tongue against his as they had both become consumed by lust. Sam, he recalls, had undone half of his shirt and he had been only one button away from losing control and running his hands along places untouched on her body when Carly had called out that she was back. Freddie had pulled away from Sam, his lips red and bruised, skin hot all over, and he had just stared in Sam's desire-filled eyes before she turned away from him and answered to Carly, yelling out to her that they were in the studio.

Freddie pulls his head from his reverie and reluctantly places the photo back on its spot. He surveys the rest of the room. There's not much else in the way of personal items in the room besides a pair of shades and a day's old newspaper lying on the side table. He looks out of the window, at the passing cars and the dull rays of the sun hidden behind clouds, and wonders when she'll be back. After gathering a few things from his bag, he goes into the bathroom and soon discovers that the door doesn't close properly. There is a hinge that's loose, making the door crooked, and when he pushes against it, it only hits the doorframe and leaves a four-inch wide gap where it stays cracked open. He thinks that it's another thing he'll want to fix.

After freshening up, Freddie goes in search of food. Unfortunately, he finds that she was telling the truth, that there really is nothing for him to eat. With his stomach growling, he sinks onto the couch and runs his fingers through his hair, gripping strands. He was torn; he didn't want to leave the apartment just in case Sam came back, but his stomach was roiling in hunger and he remembers the spot she had mentioned the night before.

He rolls his head in his palms until he's facing her bedroom door. He stares at it for a minute, curious as to what may lie behind it but cautious enough to know that it would be in his best interest not to pry. His inquisitiveness triumphs over his cautiousness and he holds his breath as he slowly turns the knob.

What he finds is that her room is dark, a huge contrast from the rest of the apartment which is surprisingly bright for the clouds covering the sun. The curtains are drawn closed, blinds are down, and Freddie barely notices his feet taking him to her low dresser, just knows that he is soon running his hands over everything, trying quickly to catalog these bare snippets of the life she has created for herself. A coin purse here, a couple of pairs of earrings there, a comb and a small makeup kit. He turns away from the dresser when a creaking floorboard startles him.

"Sam?" He calls, and then winces, remembering that the last thing he wanted was to be caught snooping around in her room. He tries to think up an excuse as he waits for a sound of acknowledgement, afraid but expecting Sam to stop in front of her bedroom door and accuse him of prying. But she never comes and he lets out a breath that he didn't know he was holding. He places the items on her dresser the way he had found them and is halfway across her room to the door when he stops and eyes her bed.

The dark sheets are messy in the way that they're thrown around on the bed and the pillows are at the head, crumpled, but in the middle is a small wooden box. Freddie goes to the bed and picks up the object. When he opens it and tinny music spills out, he closes it quickly, sweat beading on his forehead. But he opens it again and, headless of the high-pitched tune, shoves a small notepad to the side, lets a delicate chain slide through his fingers, and halts when he sees something unfamiliar but not unknown at the bottom. It's small, the color and texture of dead grass, and it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out what it is.

He snaps the lid closed and tosses it on the bed, all at once revolted and angry and just a bit distressed. He does end up going to the burger place a short while later when all of his hard thinking and jittery nerves get the best of him. He's hoping that the fast-paced diner will at least get his mind off of confusing thought of Sam, of what she's grown to be, and set his head straight so that he could know what to say when she finally gets back to the apartment.


	9. this waltz

Sam's hands grip the steering wheel as quiet sobs wrack her body.

She's trying hard to get herself under control, has been trying since she stopped on her way out of the door that morning. She had gotten caught up in looking at Freddie as he slept, limbs thrown about her couch but face serene, and years worth of frustration had crept up on her. Her face had flushed and ears tingled before her vision clouded with tears. She had sent him one long last look when she reached the door, and the last thing she remembered was him stirring before she left.

She had sat in her car in the parking lot for a while after, beating herself up for hiding away from him not only last night, but this morning. But then she had looked up and saw him staring out of the window and she felt as if she were making the right choice. There was no way she's last more than five minutes in a room with him without caving under the pressure of a wound peeled freshly in her chest.

He had hurt her too badly.

She swiped a hand over her eyes, wiped the tears away and continued driving. Just for an hour more, she told herself. Just until she felt even a shadow of composure, enough to go back to the apartment. She had already been in her car for the nearly two hours that had passed since her shift ended. It was difficult even getting through her work day, and Sam found herself forcing smiled more so than usual, barely listening as the patrons rattled off their same old order for her to jot down in her same old flip pad. And as much as she wanted for the work day to end, the closer the hour hand on the clock got to the number four, the more her stomach knotted in apprehension and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep her skin from flushing a dark red. And once she had gotten in her car…

Sam squeezes her eyes shut and blinks them open to see the road, long and stretching under the wheels of her car. She turns the volume on the radio louder and wipes away a rogue tear.

::: ::: ::: :::

With the car off, the silence is near deafening. Sam runs a hand across her brows and tugs the keys from the ignition. She sits back in her seat and bites her lip as she tries to figure out a plan for the rest of the night.

Step one, avoid Freddie at all costs.

Step two… Well, once she succeeds in avoiding him, there will be nothing else she'd need to do.

She nods to herself before climbing out of the car, and makes sure it's locked before she enters the building. She unlocks the front door to her apartment and tosses her keys on the table, brushing past Freddie and into the kitchen. She fills a glass with tap water.

"How was your day?" He asks, and Sam grunts into her drink. "I got you something." He comes toward her with a small bag and she eyes it warily. "From the diner," he explained. "Thought you might like something to eat, you know, after being gone half the day."

She places the cup in the sink with a small thump and says, "Thanks. I'm not hungry." She walks away from him and rushes into the bathroom, leaning against the door briefly before moving to the bathtub.

She takes her time in the shower, letting the hot water work over kinks in her neck and soothe her rapidly fluttering pulse. Soap runs heavily down her back as her thoughts turn to Carly, how she must be and if she knew that Freddie was coming to visit her. She vows to call her best friend by the end of the night.

Sam's feet slap the tile and she grabs a towel to dry herself off. "Damn," she berates herself, so careless in the way that she hadn't thought to bring with her a change of clothes. She pulls on her jeans and company tee, tiptoes across the apartment to her bedroom where she quickly changes into something more comfortable. When she exits her room, she can still hear Freddie in the kitchen. She turns the TV on and sits on the couch with her feet curled under her and grabs the phone.

"Carly," Sam says as soon as the line is picked up.

"Sam! Great timing." Carly's voice is joyous and animated, and Sam presses the heel of her hand to her aching eye. "I was just about to call you to let you know that you have a surprise coming your way." She says this in a way that's supposed to have Sam intrigued, begging what it must be, but all it has Sam doing is gritting her teeth.

"He's already here," she deadpanned and turned the volume up, not wanting the guy in question to know that she was holding a conversation about him.

"Oh," Carly said. "Well, then he's earlier than we expected. By two days, I think. Is that even possible?" The sound paper shuffling comes over the line, and then Carly sighs. "Yup, definitely possible. Two days early. Either he did not sleep a wink or he disobeyed road rules and sped there."

"You think so?" Sam could hardly imagine Freddie speeding to see her.

"Totally," she answered. "But then again, that's Freddie. His concern for us usually pushes him past the limit. So, how are you guys getting along?"

"Terribly."

"Have you _already_ had a fight with him?"

"Don't give me that condescending tone." Sam shifts on the couch and puts the phone over her other ear, watching as the bright colors of a television show flash across the screen. "And besides, when are we not fighting?"

"I don't know," Carly says, sounding uncertain. "There was a few times where you guys looked content in each other's company."

"That's because I knew I was leaving soon," Sam lies before she can stop herself. She winces and concentrates on loosening her grip around the phone.

"Sam," Carly starts.

"No, Carly, I'm sorry. Just… Bad joke. Nevermind me."

"When are you going to tell me?"

Sam lets silence fall over their conversation. She looks down at the floor and lets out a heavy breath. "I'll tell you when I tell you, Carly. Trust me, just…" _Trust_ _me_, she thinks. "Just know that if you ever want to see your precious friend again, you'd better tell him to get lost."

Carly laughs and Sam knows she's not mistaken in hearing a certain degree of misery in her voice. "You wouldn't hurt him."

Sam rises to the challenge, feeling a little slighted. "And why wouldn't I?"

"Because he cares about you and he drove all the way there, illegally speeding and all, just to see you. He misses you. We all do."

"Carly," Sam says, so suddenly deflated.

"Anyway, I have to turn in. I have an early call into the station in the morning." Carly pauses and Sam hears her weary sigh. "Be well. And be nice, okay?"

Sam, unsure of what to say, tells Carly goodnight and hangs p the phone. She stares blankly at the television for a while, thinking, when Freddie takes a seat at the other end of the couch.

She stirs and sends him a glance. "Really? This late at night?"

Freddie snorts a laugh into his coffee. "College life tends to take regular hours away from you."

"I guess," she says and twists her lips to the side as her finger picks at a loose thread on the cushion. She shakes the bangs from her eyes and surreptitiously gives Freddie a long look. It's stiff, the way he's sitting, his back ramrod straight, shoulders high, and fingers a light shade of yellow where they're gripping the cup. His jaw is clenched and he is staring a little too intensely at the TV, perhaps not seeing anything at all.

Sam turns her head away, says, "I haven't exactly been homely."

From the corner of her eye, she sees Freddie rouse. He clears his throat. "We have bad history, I understand you being mad. Don't worry about it."

"The last thing I want to do is start making excuses for myself," Sam says. She can feel the burn on her face at the spot where Freddie is staring. "So, obligatory question. How is everything going?"

"Um, well, um…" He blows out a breath, seemingly flustered. "My life is… decent. Studying is intense, which is what I pretty much expected. I have no kind of night life—or day life, for that matter—because I'm trying to get a firm grasp on my major and double minors. So, it's, uh… It's intense." He clears his throat again. "Thanks for asking."

There is a pressing question on the tip of her tongue. She wonders if she should just bite the bullet. "How about… Any girls?"

He snorts. "No. I wish, but no."

"What happened to you and Carly?" A weight she didn't know was weighing on her is lifted off her shoulders as soon as the question is blurted and she watches out for his reaction.

He smiles wistfully before answering. "We broke up a while ago. She said that what we were getting into was a turning too serious, too quickly, and then she dumped me."

Sam purses her lips and flicks through the channels in quick succession. "And now you're bitter." It's not quite a question, not quite a statement, but Sam did want for him to refute it. At least he could give her that.

"No," he says, surprisingly. "I was—as weird as it sounds coming from a guy who was in love with her half his life—I was relieved. I still don't know why I felt that way."

Sam nods and slows down on changing the channels. She has to ask. "Is there anything you regret about being with Carly?"

"Yeah. And she's sitting right in front of me."

Sam is thrown for a loop, so suddenly dizzy. She swallows, hard. "What are you saying?"

He places his mug on the table, takes a deep breath and lets it out shakily. "I should have never gotten—"

"You know what?" Sam interrupt, forces a grin. "I should go to bed. I'm exhausted."

Freddie touches her wrist as she passes by him, loosely wrapping his fingers around her. "Please don't leave."

She shakes her head and pulls out of his once familiar, now foreign, hold. "Sleep tight, Freddie." Her eyes feel sore again and it hurts to blink, hurts too much to stay around him.

She's running away again, and this time she knows it's because she would not be able to handle what she knew he was about to tell her.


End file.
